If you want to pass the exam, then buy this book. If you want in-depth knowledge of networking, than go with something else. Having said that you may wonder why I gave this book 5 STARS. It is because this book does specifically what it is marketed to do, Help you pass the Network+ exam. Even on the cover itself it does nothing to try and hide this fact. If you look for key features like: Don't Let the real test be your first test, or when it says STUDY GUIDE instead of REFERENCE BOOK, or includes more than 300 exam questions, and the book isn't that long (672 pages of which maybe 450 won't be the Appendix, glossary, or chapter headings) so it will not go in-depth on a topic that is as broad as networking. These are all dead give aways that identify a book as being merely a test book. Even the book description above states:"Network+ Certification STUDY GUIDE offers classroom-proven pedagogy that is mapped directly to CompTIA's Network+ objectives with the SOLE PURPOSE OF HELPING CANDIDATES PASS THE EXAM." If I wanted a book to help me pass a Windows NT exam I would buy, "MCSE In a Nutshell." If I wanted an in-depth understanding of Windows NT, I would Buy "Windows NT from QUE". When shopping for a book ask yourself for what purpose am I buying this book for because there are few books that act as both good STUDY GUIDES AND REFERENCE BOOKS.

If you don't know the product, you will not pass. This book will help you pass. If your only experience with Windows Server 2003 is installing it twice and running a few applications then you WILL fail the 70-290 exam no matter what book you buy! The MCSE is not like it was back in the NT4 days when you could train your parrot to pass the exams. You need to know what you are doing. This book is reasonably good at building on the exam objectives, but in some cases you will need to look at Technet. If you buy this book and fail the exam, don't blame the book - have a good look at the amount of experience you had going into the exam with Windows Server 2003. I passed this exam and this book helped (though my experience with the product, and prior Microsoft server operating systems did as well).

For a very long time, I have been looking for a textbook for my course on Internet Multimedia. This is a course where students should go beyond basic Flash tweening and button pressing. There are many books about Flash and ActionScript. Unfortunately not many of them were suitable for such a course. Finally, I found exactly what I needed - this was the book by Derek Franklin. This book goes beyond the basics and introduces ActionScripting in a way that can be easily adopted for a university course. In each chapter, the author introduces theory and then, using examples, shows how to apply this theory. Examples are completed step by step with a detailed explanation of how each technique works. This way, he achieved a very well designed mix of a lecture and tutorial. As we know this kind of mix works well for all students. Even weak students can easily follow this text. The selection of topics in this book is quite impressive. It covers most of the concepts of ActionScript in Flash MX including using Flash with XML, online applications, as well as an almost complete syntax of ActionScript. There are hundreds of examples guiding us through each topic. However, there are no end-of-chapter examples, and if you wish to adopt this book for a course, you will have to invent them on your own. It is important to note the style of writing of this book. It is precise, with NOT too much talking; very clear and easy to follow. In fact, I was reading this book like an interesting novel. The language of this book is not too crowded with technical terms and jargon. So, if you are looking for an ActionScript programmer's guide or an ActionScript reference book, this is the wrong choice. However, if you are looking for a good textbook with strong pedagogical values, this is just the right book for you. In the next academic year, I am going to use this as the textbook for my course.

There is a reason that so many universities use this text for graudate courses in E&M. Every single special function that I successfully avoided as an undergrad has shown up within the pages of this text. Jackson is thorough and more thorough. Chapters 2 and 3 introduce fundamental techniques that must be mastered in order to understand the rest of the text. Jackson's treatment of separation of variables (while solving Laplace's Equation) does not stop with the introduction of Legendre Polynomials and Spherical Harmonics... he then introduces Bessel Functions, and eventually connects Green's Functions with expansions in spherical and cylindrical coordinate systems. He has a brief section on mixed boundary conditions at the end of chapter 3. For anyone looking for a very comprehensive text on the subject of electrodynamics, I strongly recommend this book.